Saszet Kata, Almási Enikő Eszter, Rácz Ádám, Bohács Katalin, Todea Milica, Hernádi Klára, Pap Zsolt, Baia Lucian
Nanostructured Materials and Bio-Nano-Interfaces Center, Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Bio-Nano-Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University, Treboniu Laurian Street 42, RO-400271 Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Faculty of Physics, Babeș-Bolyai University, M. Kogălniceanu Street 1, RO-400084 Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Molecules. 2025 Apr 3;30(7):1600. doi: 10.3390/molecules30071600.
Natural rutile is a widely available titanium mineral which shows great potential as a photocatalyst for environmental remediation when processed correctly. Industries invest large sums in the transformation of the rutile mineral into pure, synthetic nano titania. Still, the present study proves that bare natural rutile with trace element content can also be applied as a photocatalyst, without harsh chemical interventions, simply by processing via nano grinding. Samples with different mean primary particle size values were obtained by wet stirred media milling, their compositional and structural properties were investigated, and their photocatalytic properties were evaluated under both visible- and UV-light illumination for the degradation of phenol and ibuprofen. By changing the grain size and the particle size distribution, and due to the doping effect of impurities present in the mineral, the band gap values of the samples and their photocatalytic activities changed as well. The nano milled rutile exhibited visible light photocatalytic activity, with a 33% degradation efficiency in the case of both phenol and ibuprofen, after 22 h of irradiation. The present study not only highlights the photocatalytic degradation of a pharmaceutical by natural rutile mineral, but its findings also suggest that ground nano rutile can function as an environmentally friendly photocatalyst, as it not only avoids the use of harmful chemicals typically employed in TiO synthesis but also offers a simpler, more cost-effective alternative for producing photocatalytic materials.
天然金红石是一种广泛可得的钛矿物，经过正确加工后，作为环境修复的光催化剂具有巨大潜力。工业界投入大量资金将金红石矿物转化为纯净的合成纳米二氧化钛。然而，本研究证明，含有微量元素的天然金红石在不进行苛刻化学干预的情况下，仅通过纳米研磨处理也可作为光催化剂。通过湿式搅拌介质研磨获得了具有不同平均初级粒径值的样品，研究了它们的组成和结构性质，并在可见光和紫外光照射下评估了它们对苯酚和布洛芬降解的光催化性能。通过改变晶粒尺寸和粒径分布，以及由于矿物中存在的杂质的掺杂效应，样品的带隙值及其光催化活性也发生了变化。纳米研磨的金红石表现出可见光光催化活性，在照射22小时后，对苯酚和布洛芬的降解效率均为33%。本研究不仅突出了天然金红石矿物对药物的光催化降解作用，其研究结果还表明，研磨后的纳米金红石可作为一种环境友好型光催化剂，因为它不仅避免了通常用于TiO合成的有害化学物质的使用，还为生产光催化材料提供了一种更简单、更具成本效益的替代方案。
